The silence inside the funeral home was not the kind that brings peace. It was heavy, sour, and thick with betrayal.

The ride to St. Jude’s Emergency Ward was a blur of running red lights, screaming tires, and the terrifyingly faint sound of a seven-year-old girl gasping for air in the back seat of my Cadillac.

Tomas Vasquez was hunched over his daughter, holding an oxygen mask we’d ripped from a portable kit in the trunk, tears soaking through his shirt. Bruno sat on the bench seat right beside them, resting his giant head on the child's feet, whining every time the car hit a bump.

"Stay with me, little bird," Tomas kept chanting, his thumb stroking Elena’s forehead. "Stay with Daddy. Don't close your eyes."

In the passenger seat, Tony kept his pistol pressed against the back of Marco’s head. Marco was handcuffed, squeezed into the footwell, shivering in fear.

"You've got five minutes to tell me what chemical they used on her, Marco," I said, keeping my eyes glued to the rain-slicked Queens pavement as I clipped eighty miles an hour down Grand Central Parkway. "Because if her heart stops before we hit the ER bay, I’m pulling over and letting Bruno eat your face off."

"It was... it was a paralytic!" Marco choked out, pressing his forehead against the glove compartment. "Harlan’s guys... they have a crooked anesthesiologist from the clinic on 14th Street. He gave her a low-dose neurotoxin. It drops the heart rate so low the monitors barely register it. It makes the skin cold. The coroner was paid fifty grand to sign the death certificate without a full autopsy!"

"Why?" Tony growled, digging the barrel into Marco's spine. "Why kidnap a restaurant owner's kid?"

"Because Vasquez's restaurant sits right on the waterfront property Harlan needs for his new shipping docks!" Marco sobbed. "Tomas wouldn't sell! Harlan wanted to break him—make him pay off his debt, lose his daughter, lose his mind, and abandon the lease!"

"You sold out a child for real estate?" I spat, swerving hard around a yellow cab.

"I was in debt, Don Moretti!" Marco shrieked. "Harlan had my gambling markers! He was going to kill my wife!"

"Then you should have died like a man," I said.

I slammed the brakes as we tore into the ambulance bay of St. Jude's. Nurses and doctors rushed out with a gurney the moment they saw my car plow past the entry barrier.

Within seconds, Elena was transferred to the gurney. A trauma doctor jammed a stethoscope to her chest, his eyes widening in shock. "She’s got a pulse! Weak, but it's there! Get her into Trauma Bay 1! Prepare an atropine push and get a toxicology screen immediately!"

As they wheeled the little girl through the double doors, Rosa Vasquez ran after them, her cries echoing down the sterile hallway. Tomas lingered for a fraction of a second, looking back at me with a mix of eternal gratitude and deadly rage.

"Save her," I told Tomas. "I'll handle the rest."

He nodded once, a man reborn from grief into cold purpose, and sprinted down the hall after his family.

I turned back to my car. Tony was pulling Marco out of the floorwell by his collar. Bruno stood by the bumper, his chest heaving, his dark eyes fixed on me, waiting for the order.

"Where is Victor Harlan right now?" I asked Marco, grabbing him by the throat.

"He's... he's at the docks," Marco stammered, his eyes darting frantically around the parking lot. "The midnight run. He’s supervising the shipment himself. He thinks the funeral was the end of it. He thinks you're still sitting in that chapel!"

I looked down at Bruno. The dog let out a sharp, booming bark that echoed off the concrete walls of the hospital garage. The grief was gone from his eyes. The weapon was back.

"Tony," I said quietly.

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Call the crew. Tell them to gather at the warehouse on Pier 42. Bring everything."